Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Age of Opportunity

THERE is much to like about Keith Dunstan, despite several
grave deficiencies of character. Those who lived in Melbourne during the
Seventies, when the city still had large, wide, multi-lane roadways, may recall
the many columns he penned for the Sun News Pictorial about the joy to be experienced
upon a bicycle and how nice it would be if the Queen of the Yarra were to be carved
up by bike paths. His wish came to pass and while he is probably too old these days
to pump the pedals, his heirs now oblige motorists to observe their Lycra’d
bottoms on roads reduced to perpetual one-lane traffic jams. Moreover, as
cyclists are slow and prone to falls, their presence on our roads has been one
of the many thin excuses for covering the landscape thickly with the revenue
cameras that are said to secure their safety. Dunstan also displayed an open
disdain for the footy, Melbourne’s great game and, unless someone in Jolimont
cures cancer, quite likely to remain the Southern City’s greatest contribution
to the sum of human achievement.

Keith Dunstan massages the prostate.

That said, Dunstan retains
the power to make the gentle, salient point , which
he has done this morning with a lament that so many people are announcing the
apparent passing of newspapers. He maintains the Age will survive, also the
hope at the Billabong, where one of the interesting things about Dunstan’s
column is that it does not appear in his old paper, now called the Herald Sun.

Some
years ago, for reasons best known to itself, the Herald Sun decided its future
was in celebrity gossip, sport and pictures of adorable animals and babies. Dumbing down the paper appears to have been a
conscious and quite deliberate policy, as that is the only thing to explain why
even the formerly robust finance section is worth reading only for Terry
McCrann. So Dunstan has migrated his occasional pieces to the Age, where the
dominant inanity is, for the moment, of a different variety.

But still, it should give hope to those who believe a city
of 4 million people deserves at least one, semi-decent newspaper. The Herald
Sun underwent a transformation – for the worse, but that is beside the point –
and so can the Age, perhaps for the better, with Mrs Rinehart at the helm. Indeed,
a board not half so infected with Roger Corbett’s fatalism might even see
Melbourne as an opportunity. As
a commenter at Mumbrella observed, the city still buys 600,000 papers every
day. Even allowing that a reformed Age will not attract too many young and
thoroughly wired readers, it does not require too much optimism to see it
taking away 100,000 sales from the Herald Sun on the strength of a more
convenient format and improved content, especially the latter.

It would seem that, at this stage, all Fairfax’s announced
plans for transforming itself are moot. Within weeks, Mrs Rinehart will be in
control and, one way or another, in a position to determine how the corporate
and editorial re-sculpting is implemented.
With any luck she will be aided by a spate of aggrieved resignations, as
embarrassments like Ross “I’m
no plagiarist” Gittins and David Marr decamp to academia and the solace of Mark
Scott’s comfy lap. Without wishing to tell her how to run a business, the very
first thing she should do is speed up the Age’s move to tabloid format. The
current management has announced that the Great Shrinking will not take place
until March next year, which demonstrates, if further proof be needed, that
imbecility is the prime qualification for a seat on the current Fairfax board.
How many businesses not only alert competitors to their next strategic moves but
also grant them nine months’ grace to prepare countermeasures?

Of course, if the current crew of hacks regurgitating Earth
Hour press releases remains intact, it won’t matter what size the Age comes in.
To paraphrase Gough Whitlam, it’s what it puts in its guts that’s stuffed it.
So, new editors, a new shape and an old-fashioned return to covering the city
where its erstwhile readers reside.

Why, Gina could have a winner!

FOOTNOTE: On page 26 of Wednesday’s Herald Sun the following
caption appeared beneath a picture of some sheep. “Theft: Sheep, similar
to those that were stolen.”

Herald Sun editors apparently believe their readers need to
be told what sheep look like. If that doesn’t encourage Mrs Rinehart to start
a newspaper war and have a red-hot go, nothing can.

Alan, my apologies, which should also be extended to Andrew Bolt. The Herald Sun is read so seldom at the Billabong these days, I entirely overlooked your contribution. I think you, and Melbourne, would be better served if your column appeared, and more often, in a revamped Age -- less competition from those chocolate box illustrations of puppies stuffed in football socks which now dominate the Herald Sun's news pages.

This whole media thingie has whipped the ABC and associated acolytes into a bit of a frenzy. Tricky one for the Labor pollies to address, after all thus far no seats on the board, no influence exists. And ownership concentration OK whilst the bulk of Fairfax was in the hands of 'friends'...

I remember the experts of the 60s and 70s assuring the world that TV would kill motion pictures - they were wrong. Likewise, I don't believe the internet will kill newspapers that provide news rather than propaganda.

I've just backed my belief with the purchase of some Fairfax shares. So long Roger, go for it Gina!

I too hope that The Age and the SMH survive, Professor. How pleasing if they were to return to being papers that I might want again to purchase either online or off, perhaps still enjoying the smell of newsprint in the morning as I once did in a far off time before they produced merely sludge. But, being a bellweather as of course I am, and as I (and the world) have changed since that far off time (ten years has it been?), so should they. A return to the past is not what is needed in format or thinking. A vision of an Australian future, including a mining future, with options varied and well-discussed, with differing opinions on how to develop (as is inevitable) this land and its peoples, might get my dollars for them once more. Especially if it had a decent international commentary and was salted with cultural commentary that was not straight out of some banal writers' festival chanting green wisdoms. To cap it all off, there could be profile stories about significant people that in the current Fairfax iteration are mostly unsung or sung off-note.

Taking an expansive and generous turn this winter's morn, I submit that even among the Lycra crowd, Boy-on-a-Bike shows that some of them are worthy persons. As you note too for Keith (The Pedal) Dunstan. They just need to be removed from roads, the natural and heritage-ambit habitat of what were once termed motorised vehicles, now generally known as cars (forget the trucks).

I'm glad you corrected yourself about the few bits of worthwhile content in the Hun,dear Prof.

Speaking personally, the times I buy it in Woolies it is to read Andrew Bolt(won't register or pay on line ) and If Terry is included along with the puzzle pages I almost get my $2 worth. Five years ago I had it delivered daily- not any more,as I see the editor being deliberately anti conservative governments(yes Ted is almost useless at the hoped for derailment of greeny madness Labor left behind , but they have chased his character into back alleys from say one) .Similarly the Australian has lost me though I never could stomach the nroadsheet size--the Age was the first one I ditched, it's a festering nest of leftist Greeny tosh,and if it doesn't change I shall cheer loudly when it dies its final throes!